Chapter IV: Lawful and Unlawful
(4) Fourth stage is the forbearance of the Siddiqs. To them, those things are lawful in which there is no transgression and which do not help the commission of sin. The object of their every action is to please God and they have God-fear in all their deeds. They live for God and they think that what is done except for God is unlawful. They follow this verse : Say God and then leave them sporting in their useless talks. This is the rank of those who fellow Tauhid. The following arc some examples of their piety.
(1) Once the sage Ihya-b-Quran used a medicine. His wife said to him : Walk for a while within the house, so that the medicine may work. He said : I don't know of such walk. I am counting my breaths for the last thirty years. He did not consider it connected with religion.
(2) Hazrat Sufiyan Saori said : Once I got upon a hill and saw a. fountain and vegetables. I wished to eat something of the vegetables and drink water. Then I thought that I would eat a lawful thing to-day . An unseen voice said : Wherefrom has the strength which has taken you to this stage come ? Then I became repentant and begged forgiveness.
(3) The sage Zunnun Misri was once imprisoned and began to pass time without food. He then became hungry. A woman sent some food to him through the hand of one of the men of the prison, but he did not eat it on the ground that the hand of an oppressor took it to him.
(4) The sage Bashar Hafi did not-drink water of a canal dug by a tyrant ruler although this was lawful. For this reason. Hazrat Abu Bakr vomit ted the milk he drank for fear that the strength of unlawful thing would increase therefor.
(5) Once a servant of a sage took some fuel from the fuel of a transgressor. He put it off on the ground that the fuel was unlawfully earned.
70 The Book of Wordly Usages Vol-II
These are some of the instances of God-fear of the early sages and pious men. God-fear reaches its climax in the fourth stage of the Siddiq or greatly truthful man.
SECTION 2
DIFFERENT STAGES OF DOUBTFUL THINGS
The Prophet said: Lawful things are clear and unlawful things are also clear and between them there are the doubtful things. Most of the people do not know them. He who saves himself from doubtful things purifies his honour and religion.
He who falls in doubtful things may fall in unlawful things like the shepherd who has got chance of falling into reserved grazing ground he grazes his flock of sheep round it. What is troublesome and unlchown to the majority of the people are the doubtful things which should be discussed.